Why a User-Centric Mindset Matters in Product Management
13/05/2023 – In the ever-evolving world of product management, one thing remains constant: the customer. Therefore, understanding and applying a customer-centric approach to your work is paramount. It's the golden ticket that can take your product from good to great, from merely functional to truly nice. In this blog post, we will discuss the importance of putting the user first and how to start doing so.
Why is it important to put the customer first?
First and foremost, let's understand what it means to be customer-centric. Being customer-centric is more than just listening to customer feedback or meeting their requirements. It means putting the user at the centre of every decision, at every stage of product development. It's about truly understanding their needs, their pain points and their aspirations. It's about empathising with them, not just sympathising. And it helps us to think in terms of outcomes, not outputs: a desired change in user behaviour is more important than the number of features we have built in the last three months.
But how do you bring this customer-centric mindset to product management?
It all starts with understanding who your users are. And the crucial first step is to conduct user research. There are many ways to do this: from interviews, surveys and focus groups to direct observation and usability testing. But the goal is usually to understand your users' behaviours, motivations, needs and - most importantly - pain points. Marty Cagan, one of the world's foremost thinkers on everything product-related, explicitly states that user research is about finding out what your users don't like.
In addition to the above, and if you are working with an existing product, take a hard look at the analytics data you already have. How are your customers using your product? Which parts of your product do they use most? Which actions are most important to them? And most importantly - what do they dislike about the product? This can include both quantitative data, such as usage metrics, and qualitative data, such as user feedback and reviews. If your team has access to user researchers or data analysts, use them and turn user research into a collaborative learning opportunity.
A popular way to make your user base less abstract is to use user personas. These are fictional characters created to represent different types of users who might use your product. They can be a false friend if used incorrectly. To avoid hat, they always need to be based on user research and data. Otherwise, problems such as confirmation bias are just around the corner. Include details such as demographics, behaviours, motivations and goals. Another trick is to include a compelling image representing the character. Used correctly, personas help humanise your users and make it easier to empathise with them.
And remember, understanding your users is not a one-off exercise, but an ongoing process. As your product evolves, so do your users and their needs. Make it a habit to interact with your users on a regular basis. The best teams even embrace a continuous discovery mindset, as Teresa Torres advises: at least one session with real users per week; the more frequent, the better.
Once we have done our initial research, it is a good practice to map out a persona's journey with your product. These user journey maps are a visualisation of the process a person goes through to achieve a goal with your product. It helps to identify potential pain points and moments of delight in the user's journey.
User Stories are another powerful tool to put users in the center of the development process. They provide a simple, concise way of capturing a requirement from the user's perspective. A User Story typically follows this format: "As [type of user], I want [some goal] so that [some reason]."
This structure forces you to think from the user's perspective. It's no longer about what your product can do. It's about what your user wants to do and why. The "why" is particularly important. It taps into the user's motivations and aspirations, providing valuable context to guide your product development decisions. A user story without a proper and well thought out "why" is not a user story at all.
Let's take an example. Instead of saying "our app should allow file sharing", a user story would say "As a project manager, I want to be able to share files with my team so that we can collaborate more effectively". The latter encapsulates not only the functionality but also the underlying user need, supporting the reason for the whole implementation.
After all, User Stories are called User Stories for a reason. Do not hide getting rid of technical debt or enablers behind a fake story! Stories like "As a mobile developer, I want to refactor our MongoDB setup to make future development easier." are quite common. Don't get us wrong, it's extremely important to continuously improve everything that happens "under the hood" of your product. If you're not constantly paying off your technical debt, it will come back to bite you in the future. Just don't hide these necessary improvements behind User Stories.
People don't just use products, they experience them. And a large part of that experience is emotional. We try to design experiences that evoke positive emotions. Happy users lead to users who value your product, which leads to business value. Whether it's the joy of discovering a new feature, the satisfaction of completing a task effortlessly or the delight of a useful personalised recommendation.
Once we have identified what can potentially be built for our customers, we need to be very critical about what is worth building. Which feature (presumably) provides the most value? What do we do first?
Focus is crucial here. In the race to out-innovate the competition, or simply to satisfy our internal stakeholders, it's easy to lose sight of what really matters: delivering value to users; that's what a user-centric mindset really means and why it's important. Sometimes it's about refining an existing feature to make it easier to use. Sometimes even about removing a feature that's causing more confusion than benefit.
In the words of Jeff Bezos, "We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” As Product Managers, we are the hosts of this party. Let's make it a memorable one.
So how do you put these principles into practice? Here are some actionable steps to get you started.
Conduct regular user research: Even if you say "we don't do that here", there's always a way to get in touch with your end users. This could be through surveys, interviews, focus groups or even usability testing. Maybe even ideas like in-app feedback mechanisms or social media engagement. The key is to make them feel heard and valued. The method doesn't really matter as much as the frequency and quality of the insights you gather. It's a good idea to translate the insights from your research into key personas for your product.
Start with User Stories: Use User Stories as a fundamental tool in your product development process. Whether it's a new feature or an enhancement, start with a user story. And remember, it's not just about writing the story; it's about validating, refining and ultimately bringing it to life.
Practice empathetic design: Go beyond usability and aesthetics. Think about how your product makes people feel. And always start with why - why do our users do or want this or that?
Begin your continuous learning journey: Becoming truly customer-centric is a marathon, not a sprint. It's an ongoing process, a mindset that needs to be nurtured and sustained. It takes time and effort. But the rewards - a product that truly resonates with users, solves real problems and delivers real value - are well worth it.
Want to know more? Five recommended readings to continue your learning journey.
INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan
User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton
User Stories Applied by Mike Cohn
Continuous Discovery by Teresa Torres
Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr